JAASKA – CHINNA CHINNA (காதல் காதல்)

I really like this song. There is something so different about it. To be honest with you, I don't know of many "modern" tracks from new and up-and-coming artists and producers or whatever that have ever used a sample of Tamil singing. But hearing this now I just think well, why not? Why the hell not? People are grabbing at samples from other languages, heavily from Japanese with anime stuff being super popular amongst the children of the world, and I guess that means Tamil films and music are just not that popular. Oh well. Maybe they will be one day. Here's a fun fact about me though: I like to listen to a London radio station called IBC Tamil – it is digital and you can listen online so go check it out. It fills any house with instant beauty.

Yesterday the track didn't have the parenthesised "காதல் காதல்" – காதல் is "kāthal" and kāthal means love. So doubled it could mean... I dunno. Love love. Big love? I dunno. I literally don't know I'm just guessing. On the other hand "chinna chinna" is "சின்ன சின்ன" – just the singular chinna (or சின்ன) means "petty" but also "young; small; little" (check if u don't believe me), so I am confused. Con. Fused.

Anyway for goodness' sake I'd better just talk about this damn song. It's great. It's from a New York City-dwelling person called Jaaska and Jaaska makes music. From its beginnings as something mysterious and near-menacing, with the sound of a gun being cocked at the end of the intro, 'Chinna Chinna' features the serpentine elasticity of a fluttering vocal sample (in Tamil) that ornamentalises its heavily distorted pillars of bass that prop the song up with triumphal pop patterns.

A simple melody plays gently over the top of the waterfallish haze of the synth, below which is the neo-trap rhythm: thudding tumbling rocks of kick virtuosity and – in place of a snare – something that sounds like coconut halves clopped together or some other equally clopping slice of percussion. It's a really fun song that feels as though you're being swayed back and forth, dancing with somebody perhaps, and it is full of carefree colour and vivacity.

As for that sample: maybe it's from the A. R. Rahman song 'Chinna Chinna Aasai' or maybe it's from 'Chinna Chinna Vanna Kuil', a song in Mouna Ragam, a 1986 Tamil film – perhaps it's from this other song. Fact is, I don't know, and it's been driving me nuts trying to find it. I've just spent the last half an hour, maybe longer, maybe an hour, trying to find this sample. WHERE IS IT FROM TELL ME NOW.

• If you liked this portion of surgingly fun music, it comes from an UPCOMING EP from Jaaska called Videshi, out soon on AMDISCS.

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